lordpil's blog

impossible is a strong word
but you get a gut feeling if the problem will be significant or not
like, obviously there will be wavelengths the size of major dimensions
but is there enough other trash in the box for it to matter?
fuck knows, just build it and see
kevtris: its worse in actual driver assembly
most acoustics guys are like 50% manufacturing engineer
maybe but i dont think so
but yeah, sustaining engineers are like WTF SPEAKER GUYS WHY CANT YOUR DRIVERS DO +/- 2dB
after a factory visit, theyre like JEZUS FUCK I CANT BELIEVE YOU GUYS KEEP THESE WITHIN 2dB!
oh those, i think ive seen that
funny how the tweeter diffuser looks like its muff
eastern europe is prob all sorts of fucked

pro sound is usually ply, studio and home is usually MDF
depends how much you want to pay
my guess is was kind of the same then
pay less, get shit with tons of voids and random particle and chip inside
good money and you get consistent sheets, no voids
well, its kind of one of those things where theres so many variables at play, you kind of roll the dice once you get close
typically, rigidity and mass are your friends
but right, you want braces in certain places
you want to avoid symmetries if possible
for mechanical and acoustic reasons
yeah
you dont want reflectiuons inside the cabinet to hit the back of the cones at the same time
you want to try and spead it out
like, usually in speakers you dont eliminate problems
you cant
so you spread them out, heh
right, or an angled wall, or angled braces
you can get standing waves inside that can rock cones
make them crash
yes you can use a desynced strobe, slow motion, to see it
almost impossible to predict these things

kevtris: thats valid theory and practice
if you line up the drivers edge to edge, you basically get a cylindrical wave front
instead of spherical
so you only drop 3dB per doubling of distance, versus 6dB
thats why big hung line arrays are used at outdoor music venues
most of the time, small line arrays in home speakers are marketing
same with beam steering
it works, its audible, but it doesnt work great
haha @ their 'optimum curve'
most marketable speakers are curved between C and D
like, i would prefer measurements of their optimum curve
but i would prob pick the more aggressive ones in blind listening
1" ply is pretty good practice
its not, even high end pro sound is usually just .75"

would be neat if there were more active home speakers
i think the receiver dies soon, and it happens more
yeah but they dont spend the money
normal people spend money, and normal people will accept much lower quality for convenience
they want to buy a tv and have sound that doesnt suck
but it does, so they buy a soundbar and a sub
they can be done well but usually theyre not
right, or a wave radio
nope
thats fine as long as its tuned correct
yeah ceramic would be awesome
but prob wouldnt always survive shipping =\
also expensive versus cardboard and ABS
kevtris: haha

i dont think its anechoic at all, they just have enough space to gate and still get down low
and everything else ive heard people talk about is pretty compromised
which isnt bad, basically the whole industry has always been developed with crap chambers
but yeah, mostly people talk about what certain chambers would do to their measurements, and how they dealt with it
biggest is basically best
they ask me what i want from a chamber, i say if we dont get more space dont even spend the money
which is 30 x 30 x 30
yeah thats nice

catbyte: we just left shit unclad
catbyte: lots of 3M spray adhesive and drywall screws with fender washers
they had guys in from the big anechoic chamber companies, they want a $$$$ chamber at their next building
but it looks like with all the size compromises they have to make it wont be much better than the oc703 chamber i used when i was there
are they the guys in canada?
i think one of the acoustic guys from exjob worked there
dunno if they have best chamber ever, but sounded like they could do real measurements
coolest shit ive heard is that QSC has basically a corner of their building cleared floor to roof just for their chamber

yeah
theres some recycled cotton shit, not as rigid but as good acoustically
want to try that out
kind of spendy, 703 is pretty cheap
yeah
but working with fuck tons of fiberglass, alternatives start looking really interesting
timecop: heh, 0404?

yeah its a weird test for those numbers
703 is the best, 705 reflects too much or something, too dense
well argue or no, 703 wont block LF reflections
itll kill HF, and its pretty good at MF
itll modulate LF, like diffuse wave front, so you can use it to kill resonant peaks or cuts in a room

so we assume theyre end-of-the-line EQ'd
both speakers on top of each other
yeah we were more impressed that our room actually worked that well
like, they were better than advertised
noice
our shit was converted warehouse space, like owens corning 2x4' rigid panels, 4" thick everywhere
and listening rooms were built to some iec spec for surround listening rooms, with diffusers and panels on rails so we could reposition quick
i doubt it goes that low effectively
in a studio it might not be great
just because its going to throw off your sound everytime you adjust stuff
but for a listening room, its great

we had some DSP genelecs in the listening rooms, crazy alignment so transients were mind blowing
like, i didnt know speakers could sound that fast
anyway, getting the non acoustic people listen to a bunch of music they were familiar with was always great
because at first theyre like, wtf this sounds weird
and they're always eventually like, "i dont know how i know but i know this is how it sounds like"
i think because people listen to shit on enough diff systems over time, they kind of pick up all the diff elements
catbyte: you like them?
ive never really spent time with their older stuff
awesome
their DSP stuff was ridiculous flat when we measured them
like, 100hz to 5khz they were something stupid in our chamber, like +/- 0.25dB or something

all registered for fall classes, 8am US history like three days a week =\
thanks, i got lucky getting into audio work
no, gen ed requirement
right, and not really a musician, just like audio and the gear
i wanted to work for like 4 or 5 years before going back to school, anything tech or cnc related
audio was some fantasy lala shit, walked into the cerwin-vega building like, hire me!!! worked out, done my 5 years
fun experience, likely addicted for life
no one really escapes audio
some people try but they always come back
yeah totally

if theyre playing the same material, stereo or grouped, theyll sync almost perfect
you gotta have good ears, know what to look for, and have the right source material to hear desync artifacts
slightly phaser effects
right you wont notice unless youre critical listening with familiar source material
yeah for what you want to do its maybe perfect
have you heard the plaster speakers?
ha
fuck im going to have to start going to bed at midnight

*does
would look into little full range drivers
some tang band shit or something
ive been told this is what the head of tang band gets off on, trying to build the perfect single driver speaker
it can play from 12 diff sources, say 12 diff wav files hosted on a network drive (they dont have local storage)
as long as you dont care at all about sync, its fine
yeah
and you can group them to play the same material
and theyll sync

thats actually super cool
sonos did an install at their gallery space, but when i was there it was too loud to appreciate the mix
was like 20 tracks or something, and the speakers were on servos and would rotate to follow the user walking through the install
yeah they did the cables and motor assembly very neat, and i think they were hung on acrylic rods? or something like that, all at diff heights
dont drop them
the ones i said to get
yeah dont drop them
well if you need synchronization, i dont think you want sonos
the price you pay for them being totally in sync when playing grouped or in stereo is they will throttle sample rates to match
but absolute latency can get ridiculous
then yeah they can work
do it have to be full range?

if you have a good wifi network and decent pipe, i would suggest it
personal opinion, play:1 is their best sounding speaker
two play:1 and a sub is their best setup for music
they cant tell you that, because play:1 is their cheapest speaker
like commercial sound style?
sonos wont do that as a matter of policy right now
well, acoustic jezus is crying because you said that
commercial sound is like speakers you would install in a business, this is usually what in wall and in cieling speakers are
for surround?
for music, you just comb filter a ton
unless you only do higher MF and HF from one of the speakers
it just sounds like reverb, and the frequency response is different
that was my joke with line arrays and agressive beam steering
OH YOU DONT LIKE HOW IT SOUNDS?! JUST TRY MOVING OVER 6" ITLL SOUND TOTALLY DIFF
oh like soundscape stuff?

new place is like, small, established, got by forever with no money, now has money
engineering lab tech, support development, manufacturing and sustaining
build prototypes, evaluate contract manufacturer samples, documentation of assembly and rework, diagnose customer returns, hold marketings hand at technical stuff during launch
test for specification and compliance (safety and electromagnetic), that a lot of it
yeah its great for what i wanted from it

cv/krk was like, left over remnants other labs from previously successful companies, the capability was usually decent if you were willing to dig through junk to look for parts and gear
line 6 was like, established, high capabilities and mad parts, just enough money to help if the lab wasnt already setup to do something
sonos was like, young, growing, bleeding money and very high capabilities, but moving too fast to really use much of it

right so unless you over value your time, or for some reason thise took you 5 hours, yeah you prob did better
and yeah it was annoying
just how it ended up after a few moves
ha, i feel like ive worked in all stages of an engineering lab

http://www.lkgoodwin.com/more_info/wire_spool_racks_and_cabinets/wire_spool_racks_and_cabinets.shtml
tall one on the left, what sonos had
fuuu, yeah i just now noticed the price
but right, you can do as functional with like $20 in wood and $20 in pipe, in about $20 of time if you value yourself at $20/hr
ha, at cerwin-vega/krk, there were just spool of wire thrown in metal shelves

timecop: think ive seen it
gold plated rat bite corners, think ive reworked it actually
yeah pretty sure one of the line 6 racks was wood
sonos had some shit looked like from u-line
matched the benches, but all i can find at uline is a big warehouse looking one
http://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/H-4546/Industrial-Shelving/High-Capacity-Reel-Rack-48-x-24-x-96
im not sure but the steel one at sonos i think was bolted into the side of some steel warehouse shelving
and the wooden one at line 6 was just sitting on top of some low shelving

so like, i has a backpack for 12 years, eastpak, need to replace finally
so i do some research because eastpak hard to find and maybe not the same company
eastpak currently owned by VF corporation, so not same company so im like fuckit and ask google about jansport
google says jansport and its main competitor north face are both owned by VF corporation
so like, all three brands i was considering before doing research, actually the same company
sometimes living in the future is retarded
damn, vans and timberland too

meh, no one really sells stereo gear anymore
if they do, theyre prob 10+ year old designs if they dont include surround processing
anyway, pc speakers can be decent, but the headphone out is a secondary feature, its going to suck
even on high 3end receivers, the headphone circuit is often just an opamp
speakers in general, if youre not buying studio gear, most likely your speakers suck
if you spent $1000 on home speakers, they may not suck, but the $1000 set of studio monitor speakers is going to kick their ass
its possible that the home speakers can get louder, but not by much
i talk to everyone
one could argue most of the time i am talking to myself
sometimes, yeah
depends on the crowd really

prob just an opamp output but whatevers, if hes into it its good
yeah
alot of times the headphone amp is the buffer for the speaker amp, and they select output using the jack switches on the headphone jack
so if you use the headphones alot, quite likely one of your speaker amp channels goes out eventually
depends
sometimes they just go with a chipamp, and often cheap solution in that context is a good one
well the pc might actually have a headphone amp capable of decent output with signal load (>1k)
isnt what?
yeah pc speakers are a bunch of random, as far as electronics
eh?
like, biamped?
with active xovers?
theyre called monitor speakers
youre going to pay minimum $250 for a set

blackmoon: what rab said
blackmoon: i dont keep up on the headphone amp indie products, buy $100 sounds about right for a DAC and HP amp
audible noise floor is prob biggest diff with a lot of those products, and you wouldn't know the difference unless you had a bunch on hand to test unless the shit was real bad
mad audible noise on 'audiophile' grade shit is prob #1 indicator designers didn't give a fuck
both mass production and indie type shit
because why